I’m a Christian and I think ‘Noah’ deserves a four star review

Naturally, we decided to spend it being pummeled by the blaring condescension of the most insipid, absurd, unimaginative, clumsily contrived piece of anti-Christian filmmaking to come along since, well, probably just last week.

In fact, if I learned anything from Noah, it’s this: despite popular perception, you can often judge a book by its cover. Also, giant deformed rock monsters make for awkward supporting characters.

We’ll meditate on that second item in a moment, but it’s the first point that should be especially emphasized.

Christians: you’ll hear people insist that you can’t criticize the movie until you’ve seen it. Noticeably, the loudest voices in this camp are the ones who will (rather coincidentally, I’m sure) profit immensely if you meet their challenge.

Don’t.

Don’t bother.

You can hate this film without watching it, for the same reason that you can assume Citizen Kane is slightly superior to Need For Speed, without having seen either of them.

Just use context clues. Use your judgment. Use your money on something else.

Noah is a major Hollywood blockbuster, made by an atheist director best known for his previous flick where a mentally disturbed lesbian ballerina goes insane and bleeds to death on stage. Already, a critical person might be slightly concerned about his handling of the Bible, considering what he just did to the ballet.

These concerns grew from suspicion to reality before it was even released, when the man himself came out publicly and professed Noah to be both an environmentalist propaganda piece, and the “least Biblical” Bible film ever made.

He wasn’t lying.

But he forgot to mention that it’s also a terrible film.

The way I figure it, I must now convince at least two people to skip this movie in order to cancel out the twenty dollars I just contributed to Darren Aronofosky’s and Russel Crowe’s coffers.

What better way to do that than by spoiling the entire thing?

So here goes a thorough synopsis and spoiler, which will hopefully quell your curiosity and alleviate any urge you might feel to go and experience this ridiculous train wreck for yourself:

We are first introduced to the Noah of Noah on a hill in the barren wasteland of the Fallen. In a captivating and subtle initial sequence, our protagonist castigates his son for pulling a flower out of the ground, right before rushing to the aid of an injured dog.

A scraggly band of Bad Guys soon show up with the wicked intentions of devouring the animal’s flesh, because, in this story, the Height of Evil is to stave off your imminent starvation by hunting wild game. (If only they’d developed Noah’s ability to be a strict vegetarian in an environment almost entirely devoid of vegetation.)

The Bad Guys attack Noah, not realizing that he’s a vegan Martial Arts master. Noah proceeds to kick some serious butt, leaving all of the Bad Guys bleeding on the ground.

One of them looks up at him in awe and terror. “What do you want?”

“Justice,” Noah growls with a determined gaze.

I was expecting him to then whisper, “I’m Batman,” and disappear, but I realized that superhero movies wouldn’t have dialogue nearly so clichéd as this embarrassing farce.

At any rate, Noah wants justice. Of course, this is coming from the same dude who will spend the rest of the movie contemplating murder-suicide and threatening to stab babies in the face.

But, hey, nobody’s perfect.

After a troubling nightmare, Noah, for unclear reasons, sets off to find his grandfather Methuselah, who, for unclear reasons, hangs out in a cave and drinks hallucinogenic tea all day.

On the way, our heroes encounter a group of the aforementioned Rock Monsters.

The Rock Monsters — a cross between the Ents from The Lord of the Rings, Transformers, and Muppets — are fallen angels who came down to Earth to help the humans after mean ol’ God cast Adam and Eve out of Eden. The ‘Creator’ was ticked at the angels for being big softies, so he cursed them and turned them into Giant Stone Gumbies.

Christian apologists for this movie have claimed that the Rock Monsters are, in fact, “Biblical” because Genesis does make vague mention of “giants.”

That’s like turning Jesus into an Olympic figure skater and calling it “theologically accurate” because the New Testament says he walked on water.

Still, the Rock Monsters are great unintentional comic relief, so I certainly wasn’t upset to have them along for the ride.

Skimming over a few parts: Methuselah gives a roofie to Noah, prompting a hallucination about the ark. Noah and the gang and the Rock Monsters then start building the ark. More Bad Guys arrive, intending to takeover, but they’re scared off by the Rock Monsters.

In this “version” of the story, only one of Noah’s sons, Shem, boards the ark with a wife. Ham, completely wife-less, is a tad displeased at the notion of default celibacy for the rest of his life.

Understandable, I suppose.

Eventually, he runs pouting into the woods, falls into a hole filled with corpses, and finds a girl sitting among all the dead people. They fall instantly in love — the classic “how we met” story — and the two of them head back to the ark. Unfortunately, Ham’s girlfriend gets caught in a bear trap and trampled by a human stampede along the way. Classic breakup story. Noah forces Ham to abandon her and leave her to die.

Matt Walsh

2,257 Comments

Ssshhh…don’t tell anyone, but somebody has kindly posted the full movie on Youtube. If you don’t want to waste 20 bucks, watch it there. No refunds with the wasted time, though, sorry.
I had enough after about 30 minutes. To me it felt like a weird hybrid of ‘10,000BC’, ‘Gladiator’ (hence the Crowe fight scenes), with a B-grade post-apocalyptic ‘Mad Max’ thrown in for good measure (without the cool vehicles).
The editing is very poor – with jerky transitioning from one scene to another, with no flow.
Nothing biblical about it that I could tell, but I’m obviously not post-modern enough to draw the deep spiritual meaning from it…

[…] the fundamentalist side have been consistently quoting Aronofsky out-of-context in their reviews. Matt Walsh’s review being passed around is a perfect example of this: he points out that Aronofsky has said in […]

The movie is not Biblical. I question why any Christian supports it. The makers of the film only want money, and all their works are filthy rags. Matt, you may be a false convert. This post made me angry and irked.

I couldn’t agree with you more, Matt. Thank you for sharing what should be obvious to every christian. Thank you for standing as a beacon of light in this sea of darkness we now call evangelism! God bless you!

This movie should have never been made. the director was so stupid and hurtful to one of the cherictors, it was not right for the girl to get trampled. there was no reason to hurt those of the audience who actually care about people getting hurt for no reason at all. this movie was a disgrace on Russel crow’s acting career.

I don’t understand why Christians are so predatory toward movies that they can’t even comprehend. Aronofsky is a genius and I highly doubt you’re ever going to produce anything that even remotely rivals his films. If you’re going to protest any and all media that has association with anyone who might harbor different views than you, you might as well stick to watching Joel Osteen reruns or possibly that horrible contrived preachy train wreck To Save A Life.

[…] flocking to it in bigger numbers than Sunday mass. But noteworthy are some Christian perspectives, as this one by Matt Walsh, on why it’s a terrible movie if you look at compared to the ‘book version.’ […]

I spoke with a christian "friend" who saw the movie and she said it was good. She admitted it was not biblically accurate, "but whatever gets people to ask about the God is a good thing". I was shocked at her attitude that reflects "the end justifies the means". This is the attitude of so many who call themselves christians.

wait a second. Your christian friend is now among those who “call themselves christians”? because they commit the great and unforgivable sin of having a different opinion than you? Sounds a little self-righteous if you ask me.

How do you validate even stepping inside the theatre to watch what you knew was trash? I am not a movie-goer, but having seen an advertisement on TV, I could have told you that you would be bombarded with Hollywood’s wickedness at its finest. And, to be frank, I think you knew that too, but couldn’t resist the temptation to go and soak it up.

[…] “If the movie studio wanted to spin a yarn about mythical beasts, epic battles, homicidal sea captains, and a pagan Earth god, they could have done so. They could have called it anything. They could have told their own story. But they called it Noah because they knew that the supposed connection to the Bible would garner immediate fascination. They knew there would be controversy, and controversy sells. They padded it with enough action movie clichés to draw interest from secular crowds, they hid the outright blasphemy well enough to please gullible Christian crowds, and they mocked Biblical theology blatantly enough to delight the critics. They came up with a way to make millions while exploiting the various sensibilities of different audience demographics.” http://themattwalshblog.com/2014/03/29/im-a-christian-and-i-think-noah-deserves-a-four-star-review/ […]

I’m finding it challenging to get a high quality TV cabinet that does not include compartments etc at
a children’s level. I’d personally really like something high enough so sticky fingers are
unable to touch the display but with something decorative on the unused space.

Usually I'm not a glass-half-full type of person, but I do believe this movie has some redeeming qualities.
For one, it does tell the story of Noah. Granted, the authors have taken some artistic liberties, but it is the story of Noah (plus some other things, which I'll address in a minute). After all, the Bible is quite laconic when telling Noah's story – what matters has been said, and we can fill in the blanks using our imagination, as long as we don't change the whole point. When we read the Bible, we picture what the places looked like, what the characters looked like, how they spoke… In the Noah movie, Methuselah drinks hallucinogenic tea. Fine. For all we know, maybe he did. Does it change the message? No. If God spoke through hallucinogens in this movie, then yes, we would have a problem. But I don't really have anything against the wise comic-relief grandpa. It's a movie.
And then there are the other stories, the wife story being probably the most notable departure from the Bible. I can't help but notice the parallels of Ham's wife in the movie with Abraham's son in the Bible. Both men expect something from God, and when it looks like it's too late for God to do anything, they take matters in their own hands. Disaster ensues. Then, God comes in and gives the man what he asked for, and does so in a most unexpected way. The message being – trust God, don't rush things, you'll only hurt yourself. Have faith in God! Isn't that a great lesson?
Another new story created by the imaginations of the scriptwriters is the story of the bad guy in the ark. Again, it's a complete departure from the Bible. But the story is really about any one of us. A christian's life is life in the ark, the God-given safe place from the storm outside. But evil still lurks within, trying to sabotage our relationships, to make our pride and ambition get us. Satan sits in a dark corner, says he understands you and tries to entice you to sin. And too many of us have listened to him and made the wrong decisions. (I know I have.)
Then there are the rock giants. Their story is one of redemption. Theologically, it's a wild idea that fallen angels can be redeemed. However, we don't have to take it literally. This story just serves as a reminder that God never forgets about us, and as long as we're here, we still have the chance repent and ask for His forgiveness. The angels had messed up and indirectly brought about this disaster, and they showed true remorse – they did their best to fix it by aiding Noah in his mission and asked God to forgive them. Notice how God's forgiveness restored them to their former selves. This is about us. Our sins weigh us down and cripple us. Only God can forgive us and take this weight off us.
My biggest issue with this movie is the flatness of the bad characters. They are bad because they're carnivores, or maybe it's the other way around. There's also their greed regarding natural resources. I would have liked more dimension to their sinful ways. With that said, Tubal-cain is an okay bad guy character. His words provide food for thought, and comparing him to Noah might provide some interesting character study, but I won't address it here. Another issue of mine is the story of Noah going crazy inside the ark and threatening to kill the babies. In all fairness, desolation might make a person snap in this kind of way. But the resolution of this story was not very satisfactory, as it didn't provide any real answers.
Speaking of answers – the Noah movie presents some good questions. What does it mean to be a man? What makes us inside the ark (the saved ones) different from those outside? Again, this is food for thought, because the movie doesn't provide answers, only questions. In fact, there are more questions than answers in the Bible as well, so I won't complain about questions. It's a movie that leaves you thinking. And that's a good thing.
By the way, The Passion of the Christ also takes some artistic liberties and does some classic Hollywood exaggerations – the creepy Satan-thing with the creepy Satan-baby comes to mind, just like the anatomically impossible amounts of blood spilled by Jesus.
I guess what it really comes down to is whether or not you insist on the movie being an accurate retelling of the source material. If you can look past that, you will see a Hollywood action/disaster movie that deals with serious existential and faith-related issues in a way no such movie has ever done before. And the stories added by the writers are seriously not bad, and they do teach us some valid lessons – maybe even more so than some "Christian" movies.

[…] has been a ton of controversy among the masses about the movie Noah. I have to admit after reading this tell all, spoiler alert blog, I’m not positive I want to watch the movie either. However, there is one very specific reason […]

I recently watched this movie and wanted to surf the web to find some other people’s thoughts. I agree with Matt’s blog post. This movie is awful. I’m a Christian and love good movies whether they are R rated or G or anything in between. I think most of Kirk Cameron’s movies are bad (sorry Kirk). So I am a very open minded watcher. But this movie Noah is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Rock Transformers? Really? Even if you dont believe in God, as a filmmaker you must understand that the texts you are attempting to take the story from is sacred to people that might want to see your film. So when you put in these talking Rocks, i mean what in the world? Its laugh out loud bad. “Man is evil” – yes understood – but not because of the multitude of sins that they could possibly commit – but because they eat meat and pick flowers? And its so contrived about attempting to create a “good guys vs bad guys” dynamic. Fallen angels are now good? Huh? Where is Satan? I’m having trouble finding any group that this movie could possibly appeal too?

I guess if you are an environmentalist atheist vegan type who enjoys seeing the Bible mocked – this is the movie for you. Since those types make up at most 1% of the entire world – I guess I can understand why this movie BOMBED at the Box Office.

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